Connacht Bow Out Of Europe With Disappointing Double-Scores Defeat

Connacht hit another painful quarter-final barrier in the European Challenge Cup as they were knocked out of this season’s tournament by a fast-starting Sale Sharks at the AJ Bell Stadium tonight.

Influential former Connacht out-half AJ MacGinty converted early tries from Byron McGuigan and Denny Solomona and added two penalties around the half-hour mark, building a convincing 20-3 half-time lead as Andy Friend’s men struggled defensively and made a high number of individual errors.

It could have been so different had Jack Carty’s interception inside the opening minutes turned into a try. Instead, Solomona’s chase down of the recent Ireland debutant forced a loose and low-slung pass which the supporting Kyle Godwin knocked on with the try-line at his mercy. Godwin did get a deserved try 13 minutes from the end, but the damage had been done in that first quarter of an hour.

Adding to Connacht’s disappointment, a bicep injury ended Carty’s involvement prematurely in the 44th minute, while Finlay Bealham was replaced late on and taken to a local hospital with a serious hand injury. The injuries to two key players come at a particularly bad time with the province facing into a series of must-win GUINNESS PRO14 games in the coming weeks.

Head coach Friend commented: “Finlay didn’t look good at all going off there (vomiting in pain with his right hand covered by a towel), so he’s heading off to hospital now to get that hand looked at. But if he’s out, which it looks like he will be certainly for the foreseeable future, that’s a massive loss for us in the front row. He’s been fantastic this year.

“Jack copped that knock on his bicep just before half-time. We gave him a chance to see if he could run that out in the second half but he’s too important for us there so we took him off. We’ll know a bit more, as you do, 24 to 48 hours after the match but fingers crossed he’s going to be okay.”

Friend’s charges came to Salford with hopes of repeating January’s 20-18 pool victory over Sale in Galway, but with a must-win PRO14 trip to Parma next week, they fielded a much-changed team with the likes of captain Jarrad Butler, Tom Farrell, Ultan Dillane, Colby Fainga’a and Matt Healy not involved. Hooker Tom McCartney stepped in as skipper on the occasion of his 100th Connacht cap.

McCartney and his team-mates were determined to right the wrongs of narrow Challenge Cup quarter-final losses to Grenoble, by a single point in 2016, and Gloucester who won by five points at the Sportsground a year ago. Carty picked off a pass from eventual man-of-the-match Faf de Klerk, on the edge of the Connacht 22, and would have had the gas to make the line but for Solomona’s hard work on the chase.

That missed opportunity in the third minute will haunt the westerners who, despite taking the lead with Carty’s right-sided penalty punishing an offside, were soon behind their own posts. They were caught out wide on two separate occasions, Sharks first using possession intelligently from a choke tackle on Eoghan Masterson, carrying forcefully to suck in the defence and then working the ball out for McGuigan to convert an overlap on the left.

MacGinty landed a terrific touchline conversion and also nailed his second kick of the night from out wide, the initial damage for the second try coming from a scrum penalty and powerful carries from Sam James and Josh Beaumont. It was MacGinty’s pinpoint cut-out pass which exploited the space offered by the Connacht rearguard as Solomona went over untouched in the right corner.

Carty missed a chance to close the gap with a penalty from the right, and Sharks went 14 points up after hooker Rob Webber got over the ball at the breakdown and MacGinty mopped up with a successful place-kick from in front of the posts. The USA international fired over his fourth successful strike in the 33rd minute, punishing flanker Masterson for an offside decision against him.

That left Connacht with a huge amount to do, particularly as they had been falling foul of referee Mathieu Raynal’s whistle and also had set piece issues to sort out. MacGinty and de Klerk were the game’s central figures, distributing and kicking smartly to keep Sharks on the front foot and in control. Indeed, the Springbok’s late peel from a scrum to send Rohan Janse van Rensburg through the gap had Connacht scrambling to avoid another try.

Into the second half, the visitors gained some momentum with breaks from Bundee Aki and Cian Kelleher, yet a penalty kick to the corner was overcooked by Godwin who switched to out-half following Carty’s injury-enforced departure. The Athlone man had been well marshalled by Sale’s aggressive defence which appeared to be creeping offside on a number of occasions.

Sharks were down to 14 men after referee Raynal sin-binned lock James Phillips for a dangerous no-arms tackle on Godwin with 59 minutes on the clock. The Australian international showed very good strength to touch down via a 10-metre scrum towards the end of the sin-bin period, with Connacht taking the scrum option from a penalty after winger Kelleher had gone close to scoring in the corner.

Full-back Darragh Leader, one of Connacht’s best performers on the night, took over the kicking duties and converted to make it a 10-point game. With the Connacht bench providing energy and impact in the closing stages, there was hope that they could cut the gap further with the impressive away support in fine voice.

However, handling errors gave possession back to Sale and the big-booted Leader’s late 60-metre penalty attempt fell short away to the right, following Sale’s second yellow card of the night for replacement hooker Curtis Langdon’s charge into a ruck in what was an ill-tempered finish to the game.

The Challenge Cup last-eight weekend has regularly not been kind to Connacht with their record now standing at eight defeats in 11 quarter-final appearances. They will have to park this sloppy performance quickly as the result leaves the PRO14 as their sole qualification route to Champions Cup rugby for next season.